her friends, they're
convinced she's destroying herself -- they see the danger she's putting herself
in, they see her health deteriorating. So they put her into rehab, kicking and
screaming, where she stays until she figures it out.

"So, it's like I'm addicted to being nuts. I have a nonrational view of the
world around me. An *inaccurate* view. You are meant to be the objective
observer, to make such notes as are necessary to determine if I'm seeing things
properly, or through a haze of nutziness. For as long as I go on taking my drug
-- shooting up my craziness -- you keep me here. Once I stop, once I accept the
objective truth of reality, you let me go. What then? Do I become a recovering
nutcase? Do I have to stand ever-vigilant against the siren song of craziness?"

The doctor ran his hands through his long hair and bounced his knee up and down.
"You could put it that way, I guess."

"So tell me, what's the next step? What is my optimum strategy for providing
compelling evidence of my repudiation of my worldview?"

"Well, that's where the analogy breaks down. This isn't about anything
demonstrable. There's no one thing we look for in making our diagnosis. It's a
collection of things, a protocol for evaluating you. It doesn't happen
overnight, either. You were committed on the basis of evidence that you had made
threats to your coworkers due to a belief that they were seeking to harm you."

"Interesting. Can we try a little thought experiment, Doctor? Say that your
coworkers really *were* seeking to harm you -- this is not without historical
precedent, right? They're seeking to sabotage you because you've discovered some
terrible treachery on their part, and they want to hush you up. So they provoke
a reaction from you and use it as the basis for an involuntary committal. How
would you, as a medical professional, distinguish that scenario from one in
which the patient is genuinely paranoid and delusional?"

The doctor looked away. "It's in the protocol -- we find it there."

"I see," I said, moving in for the kill. "I see. Where would I get more
information on the protocol? I'd like to research it before my hearing."

"I'm sorry," the doctor said, "we don't provide access to medical texts to our
patients."

"Why not? How can I defend myself against a charge if I'm not made aware of the
means by which my defense is judged? That hardly seems fair."

The doctor stood and smoothed his coat, turned his badge's la